We are pleased to invite you to the next seminar within our traditional

Seminar series in Statistics and Data Science

Speaker: Inge Helland,  Professor Emeritus, University of Oslo

Title:  On Quantum Foundation, as seen by a statistician

When? TUESDAY,  06.12.2022, 14:15-15:15

Where?  Erling Svedrups plass and Zoom https://uio.zoom.us/j/63175448566?pwd=ZkJNc1dYYTZVd1E2UUtIUFlxMXAvQT09

Abstract: 
In the literature, quantum mechanics is founded by a very abstract set of postulates. For several reasons I propose that this set should be replaced by straightforward postulates based on the notion of conceptual variables, a notion generalizing the statisticians' parameters: In his mind, any observer/ actor in each given situation may have several conceptual variables. Some of these are accessible, can in some future be given numerical values by measurements or experiments. The notion of a maximally accessible conceptual variable is crucial. This can be motivated by an assumption to the effect that all physical variables in the actor’s context have parallels in his mind. Examples are given. Under weak technical conditions, basic postulates of quantum mechanics can be shown to be implied by a postulate assuming that the actor in his mind has two related maximally accessible variables. Some specific symmetry conditions are needed. The notion of being related has a precise definition. A parallel development can be based on conceptual variables shared by a group of communicating observers. The Born formula, giving probabilities, follows from some explicit additional assumptions. The technical details around all this are given in a published book and in some recent articles. 

Welcome!

Best regards,

Sven Ove Samuelsen & Aliaksandr Hubin